


Reassurance

by EddieWrites



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff and Angst, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-07 22:44:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20983622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EddieWrites/pseuds/EddieWrites
Summary: Waking up in the middle of the night from night terrors is never fun, but when there is somebody to reassure you, things can be made better.





	Reassurance

**Author's Note:**

> This can read as a standalone so I'm posting it as such. Very very vaguely references my other work 'Nightmares' once, but that's unnecessary to understand what is going on for the most part.
> 
> Feedback is great! Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy!

This was much worse than it had ever been. 

Edelgard was beside her, strapped down next to her as she was forced to watch as the very same experiments that were forced upon her were forced on the other girl. Before where she stayed silent there was miserable pleading. The grim determination not to give her mental tormentors the imagined satisfaction of her screams was broken. 

“Please. Please let her go she doesn’t deserve this. Please, you can experiment on me all you want, please just let Edelgard free, please I beg of you.”

Her words were garbled, distorted, and she lost track of what she was saying at times so fervent in her pleading. Words seemed to cease mattering, just a single, heartfelt plea for the pain being inflicted upon herself and her Empress to cease.

“-thea”

The entire room seemed to shake, quaking and trembling as cracks spread across the gray, nondescript room.

“Lysithea!”

Just as the room seemed ready to crumble, she jolted awake, tired eyes not quite seeing what was actually in front of them until they focused on the face of the snow-haired girl who had awoken her.

“Edelgard?” 

The single word was barely audible, and the only warning before the younger girl launched herself into the arms of the one who had saved her from her nightmare. Small hiccups and broken sobs wracked her body. She could handle the usual nightmares, reliving the experiments… but add in somebody else? Someone who she cherished more than any other?

It hurt so much more.

“I’ve got you, Lysithea.”

The words were whispered into her ear, and the surge of emotion it brought renewed her tears. How was she supposed to handle this? It was one thing to be tormented, but to watch a beloved share that fate? To see that haunting image every time she closed her eyes? 

“They had you this time…”

The words were hardly audible, forced out between sobs. It didn’t matter that she was being held by the very girl she had dreamed of, her mind was still reeling. Nothing seemed safe. Nothing felt safe. It was too much to handle.

“They will never touch either of us again, Lysithea. You have my promise.”

Gentle words, words she had heard before, slowly drew her back to reality, away from the hellish nightmare she had just been through.

“Look at me, Lysithea. Can you do that?”

Slowly Lysithea drew away from her empress, body still shivering and quaking from imagined cold. As soon as she met Edelgard’s eyes, her lips were captured in a chaste, tender kiss. That served well enough to bring her back to her senses, or close enough to take comfort in her presence. Her cheeks didn’t blush prettily as they usually did, but a ghost of a smile was left on Lysithea’s lips. An improvement, at least.

“Thank you…”

Lysithea took a moment to calm herself, forcing herself to stop shaking and leveling out her breathing. A bare, warm hand touched her cheek and she leaned into the touch. It was grounding, more than she deserved.

“Do you want to talk about it…?”

It was something that they had never addressed properly, the nightmares that had driven them to sharing a bed for the first time. Both of them had been spared of nightly phantasms so long as they had been together, so this marked a first.

“Mmm…”

Lysithea bit her lip, knowing that the girl who she had most likely awoken in her fitful rest deserved an explanation. That didn’t make it easier to talk about, though. Especially when the mere memory of the dream threatened to break her fragile composure once more.

“You don’t have to…”

Lysithea shook her head, shaking off Edelgard’s offer of silence. It was now or never, even if now was in the middle of the night. She wouldn’t be able to bring herself to have such a daunting conversation later.

“It was the experiments. It’s always the experiments…”

Edelgard winced, most likely thinking of her own terrors, it was one of the drawbacks of sharing trauma such as this.

“They-”

She swallowed heavily, looking out the sole window in the room to gaze at the stars.

“It always starts slow. They explain what they’re going to do to me slowly, but I never understand a word that they’re saying…”

She suppressed a shudder at the memory of the eerie facsimile of speech that they always seemed to use around her. She never understood a word, but the intent… the malicious intent was always there. Occasionally, it would even manifest physically in an oozing, black aura.

“S-Sometimes I watch my siblings… my nightmares are the only times I remember their faces.”

Lysithea hiccuped, shaking her head as if to ward off the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes once more. When Edelgard’s hand found its way into her own, she squeezed it gratefully. It gave her the strength she needed to continue.

“It’s… it’s just one word that I understand… ‘dead’. It’s the result each time… and then they look to me.”

The soulless eyes, glaring into her very soul, always with the disappointment of a failed experiment. She grits her teeth as she banishes the image into the recesses of her mind. Her empress’s presence was the only thing that kept her going. Edelgard remained silent, smart enough not to interrupt, knowing that stopping Lysithea now may only cause her to lose her nerve instead of giving her the comfort she desperately wanted to provide.

“The procedure changes all the time… whether it’s filling me with unknown substances, cutting me open, or-”

She shuddered, cutting herself off. Edelgard didn’t need to know the gruesome specifics that her mind managed to conjure up. She hardly remembered the real procedures, so she was simply left with the brutal torture her own mind provided.  
“I try to escape, I always do. No matter how hard I strain against the restraints… I always fail.”

A choked sob left her. The feeling of being trapped was closing in on her just by talking about it, and she had to take a moment to ground herself once more. It was only the gentle, reassuring motion of Edelgard’s thumb against the back of her hand that calmed her enough to continue.

“Whoever says pain doesn’t exist in dreams was bullshitting. It’s agonizing, each and every time. I can feel the first time crests activate, the rush of pure agony as my body tries to reject them…”

She snorted, a manic laugh escaping from her lips.

“I never let them hear me scream. That’s the one thing I’ve had going for me. I always take it without a word. I don’t beg, I don’t scream, I don’t make a sound.”

The fact that her frenzied muttering and fitful motions had probably been what woke Edelgard up in the place. She would know that something had changed.

“But this time… This time they had you next to me.”

Lysithea’s spare hand that had been clenched in a fist came up to touch Edelgard’s face, a subconscious desire to ensure that she was really there before her. She closed her eyes, drawing herself forward to kiss El on the lips tenderly. 

“I couldn’t take it. I begged them to stop… I-”

Her voice cracked, shame filling her.

“I told them to keep experimenting on me instead, El…”

That was as much as she could bring herself to, and she busied herself with tracing the harsh scars on the back of the hand with her forefinger. It was calming, knowing that she was with someone who could relate to her, scarred in the same way she was on both a physical and mental level.

But it made her feel guilty, too. Why should Edelgard have to shoulder the burden of both of them? It was unfair of her to unload this upon her.

“I see…”

Lysithea’s gaze finally rose to meet her partner’s, expecting disgust and disappointment.

She was met with barely-restrained fury. 

“It wasn’t enough for them to do this to us? They have to taunt us within our dreams as well?”

It was only when Lysithea flinched at her harsh tone that the crimson flower seemed to soften. She leaned in once more, pressing a reassuring kiss against her lips, a wordless gesture to show she would never hurt the one before her. Her lips lingered longer than they had before. Lysithea could taste the faintest hints of strawberry on the other girl’s lips.

“We’ll make them pay, my love. Our scars will become theirs, and they will come to regret what they’ve done.”

It was a solemn promise, whispered in the dead of the night. Whereas before the enemy had seemed distant and insurmountable, Lysithea found herself believing what she heard. She nodded slowly her breathing leveling out once more. She moved slowly, going from her position by Edelgard’s size into her lap. When Edelgard’s arms wrapped around her, she leaned her head against her empress’s shoulder.

“The position could have been reversed, you know.”

Lysithea blinked, not following along with what it was that Edelgard was implying.

“Hmm?”

Edelgard exhaled heavily, leaning her cheek against Lysithea’s.

“I’m not unaffected yourself. You saw firsthand the first time that we ended up in the same bed.”

A lot had happened since then. Their relationship had evolved greatly. They were a couple now, for one. But ever since they started sleeping together regularly neither had been troubled with night terrors until now.

“You were simply the one unlucky enough to be troubled first. It could have easily been you comforting me in the dead of night.”

Lysithea didn’t react, simply humming in acknowledgement to her words. That didn’t help to make her feel better, instead driving an irrational spike of guilt through her stomach.

“I’m glad, Lysithea. I’m grateful that I was here to help you.”

Lysithea looked to Edelgard in surprise, a tired scowl developing on her face.

“You’re glad I woke you up in the middle of the night?”

Edelgard laughed quietly, seemingly amused at that small amount of fire that had been missing from Lysithea until then.

“No, I’m happy that you trusted me enough to tell me. I’m elated that you find me a source of comfort enough to use my shoulder as one to cry on.”

Lysithea hesitated, the scowl leaving her face in exchange for a sheepish look. Her cheeks were rosy for the first time that night.

“Oh.”

Edelgard chuckled once more, a bare, scarred hand finding Lysithea’s once again. Lysithea didn’t hesitate to squeeze gently, a hesitant smile gracing her lips.

“Having you here helps more than you can imagine, El.”

It was true. Whereas before she may have been tormented alone without anyone to go to, having Edelgard there helped more than the other girl could imagine. Not only could she tell the other her harshest nightmares, but she could seek her for comfort in ways she couldn’t with anybody else. Tender kisses, comforting embraces… it was more than she had ever imagined before. 

They had been through war together, yet that had only served to draw the two closer as they were forced to cope with some of the horrible things they’d seen, or even been forced to do. War lacked warmth, so they had found it within each other.

“El… I never want to leave you. I want to be with you forever.”

Edelgard hummed for a moment, turning her head to plant her lips on the corner of Lysithea’s smile.

“If that’s what you wish, then I’ll have to keep you to myself. The rest of the world can wait, but for now…”

A longer, more passionate kiss this time, leaving the normally indomitable Lysithea breathless. 

“Why don’t you use that as a memory to bring you pleasant dreams? We need our rest, and you did wake me up in the middle of the night.”

Edelgard’s words were teasing, and Lysithea responded with a huff, simply snuggling up to the other girl even more, burying her face in the crook of her empress’s neck.

“I think I’m quite comfortable here.”

Edelgard laughed lightly at the mumbled words, adjusting herself to get comfortable. The tiredness was catching up to them both now that emotions weren’t running quite so high.

“Then get to sleep. I’ll hold you here until morning.”

Lysithea yawned, nodding sleepily into the other, eyes already drifting shut of their own volition

“G’night El…”

Edelgard closed her own eyes, leaning her head atop Lysithea gently.

“Goodnight, my sweet.”

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to follow me on twitter at @EddiesWritings !


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